Fully-loaded Magazine

It was in 2012 when I walked into the Delhi Outlook Magazine office and realised that this was a place that was throbbing with a rare energy that newsrooms are known for and I knew I'd always keep that intact. To be on the other side of a media organisation is a difficult road to navigate and yet, it comes with a unique fulfilment that I have felt often as I have defended the editorial freedom and integrity as the CEO.

- Indranil Roy

A news organisation is not just a business. It is many more things. It means one has to respect the news, treat it as sacred and never compromise. I am proud that I have not compromised ever when it comes to Outlook even as the media landscape changed and we saw very difficult times. Outlook kept us afloat. It kept us going despite the criticism, the allegations because truth is often dignified, silent and never petty. We know our truth.

The next 13 years would be crucial for us. Outlook’s transformation over the last 13 years is a story of survival against all odds and a story of a magazine that never compromised on its core values. It is not easy for someone on the business side to protect the editorial independence at a time when compromises were being made.

For the first eight years after my arrival in Delhi, it was about keeping sales from falling further and it was a tough task to reverse this decline. Many predicted I would leave. Others speculated that the promoters had brought me to shut down operations entirely. None of the two happened.

I stayed. At the time, a seasoned CFO and a strategist from the Raheja group asked me to understand every line of the company’s financial statements, which was a completely new domain for me then. What I discovered in those numbers was deeply worrying.